my immigrant community
my life wouldn't be my life without immigrants
“The United Nations is outside” was a phrase routinely thrown around my household growing up. My mom would say this referring to my dad (a Bulgarian immigrant) standing in our front yard with his three immigrant friends, all from different countries, mulling over some feature of their BMW motorcycles before taking them for a ride down I-95. Growing up in South Florida meant that there was never a time in my life where an immigrant didn’t play an essential role in my upbringing. My dad was an immigrant and I never thought he was different because most of my friend’s parents were also immigrants. It wasn’t uncommon for your circle of friends to consist of first generation or immigrants friends. It was actually unusual to know someone with no ties to a different country- what do you mean your great grandfather is from Orlando?
Also growing up in South Florida meant you were very aware of INS (sort of ICE before it was disbanded in 2003). I always knew my privilege of being a citizen because a lot of my friends had to move through their days in fear of being asked for their papers and deported. This fear permeated through every beach hang, mall outing and even those late night after church Denny’s visits. One of my best friends came to this country when she was just two years old, and since she didn’t have the proper paper work I would watch firsthand her fear fully on display whenever law enforcement was anywhere in our vicinity. I got my driver’s license and car at 16 years old and was so excited to finally become our chauffeur to the Aventura Mall on Saturday mornings, replacing her dad who always liked to joke that I broke some part of his car the moment I got in. But this new found freedom for me did come with the responsibility of not only making sure we were safe on the road but also making sure she was safe from INS. I took note of every time she would side eye my speedometer to make sure I was going the speed limit or how her body would suddenly tense if a cop pulled up next to us. I was very aware of my position to be her protector and to make sure she was never put into a position where she needed to answer about papers.
I loved growing up in South Florida because it meant I would more often than not start my day with a Cuban coffee from my friend’s mom and end it with some sort of Brazilian dish from another friend’s mom. It meant that when I got assigned to make empanadas for my Spanish class project, I just deferred that to my friend’s Colombian grandmother while I slept over and my friend and I wrote on Livejournal and listened to emo music. It meant my immigrant dad would forbid me from going to sleepovers because he couldn’t wrap his head around sleeping in another person’s house and that some of the words he used weren’t actual English but were used so commonly I assumed they were. I never thought it was strange that I can always immediately identify if someone is speaking Spanish vs speaking Portuguese vs speaking Creole because those were all heavily used languages in my church. Missions Sunday, which in the Pentecostal world was a celebration of different countries we were evangelizing to (and also this not an endorsement of missionaries, this is just facts), meant that everyone got to express their cultures fully- it wasn’t some cosplay, it was their reality.
Being the daughter of an immigrant (and especially one from the Miami region) also meant that there was never a time where my dad didn’t remind me of how bad things were in “the old country.” How gaining freedom allowed him to feel safe for the first time in his life. As the story goes, growing up in communist Bulgaria turned my dad into an anti-government artist. He was known as some kind of philosophical young man who would routinely throw parties and paint murals raging against an oppressive government. He even once painted a mural of him naked holding a lightning bolt in my aunt’s living room (will never get the artist interpretation on that but apparently it was meant as a sign of dissent). My aunt did move a couch up against that wall though, some censorship needed to happen.
My dad struggled in his country- he struggled in food lines, he struggled being forced into the artillery forces as a teenager, he struggled to see a life where he wasn’t always being told what to do. He escaped his country and lived in a refugee camp for a year before he was granted asylum in the States. It’s still nuts to me that this man is my dad, because to me the only struggle I saw my dad go through was trying to hook up our camper to the sewage system at various KOA camps as we traveled back and forth from Pennsylvania every year. His struggles brought him here and granted him safety and watching similar people struggle to finally experience that same feeling of safety, then being kidnapped and thrown into detention camps where that safety is once again stripped is both frightening and not what this world should be.
I am absolutely the person I am because of immigrants. There would be no me without them. I still maintain close contact with two of my friends who as teenagers didn’t have the proper papers but that never stopped us from discovering The O.C., going on every ride at Universal multiple times, spending all night watching Lord of the Rings and going to a million concerts together. You know, extremely normal teenager things. Things that make a culture, a community, a world better and peaceful. I remember once getting a phone call that someone I knew was picked up by INS and I needed to go to the Broward Country jail to say my goodbyes. No teenager, no family member, no person should ever get that phone call.
Its sickening to remember as a kid watching immigrants from Cuba swimming to the Florida shore while the Coast Guard hunted them down because of Wet Foot Dry Foot (a law that stated that if an immigrant makes it to shore, dry foot, they are granted asylum but if they are captured in the water, wet foot, they are sent back). It’s disgusting how we would sometimes watch this unfold live on-air, seeing humans using their entire willpower to get to shore for asylum rather than be caught in the ocean (big example of this was Elián González).
I don’t know every single day I wake up and I can’t believe this is still happening and its only getting worse. I can’t believe the fear I would see on my friend’s faces as teenagers is still the same fear that’s now on the faces of my neighbors. Its gross that even “legal” is a term to describe any human. As a former Christian, it is also extremely abhorrent to see so called Christ followers using the phrase legal to describe someone. The Christ I studied in the Bible was flipping tables in protest in a corrupt church and welcoming all to eat with him. He set the example of how to love others and how to also protest and push back against religious hypocrisy.
For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.’
“Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?’
“The King will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.’ Matthew 25:35-40
I am not religious anymore, and nothing will pull me back that way because the love and demonstration of being kind to one another and what the Bible teaches I have seen in the actions of my secular friends. I have seen more of Jesus’s love outside the church than inside. I have seen the call to action answered by those who have no idea what tithing or worship or altar calls are and have never read a scripture verse in their life.
Immigrants are essential. People are essential. The dehumanizing work of ICE is everything a society should be against. There isn’t a single thing to dispute about this. I shouldn’t even have to write a long essay to prove the humanity of people, this is all a given. We have a racist administration terrorizing and murdering people in broad daylight. Its not slowing down, if anything they seem to be gaining momentum. It feels hopeless all the time but then there is also hope shining through seeing how people are mobilizing against it. How we are showing up, how we are defending our friends and community. Borders are fake and there are a lot of Americans born in this country who actually are criminals.
All this to say give your money to the places doing the work to stop ICE. Share that infographic on Instagram even if it kind of feels over done. It’s a privilege to think twice about doing something when a lot of people aren’t even given a single chance. Watch out for your neighbors, your friends, your community. And for godsake do for the fucking least of these.